ABOUT

Bridge <> Building

We bridge the gap between decentralized technologies and real world use cases, bringing together diverse sectors, from public to private to protocol.

While these technologies are transforming financial and communication systems, we're focused on what needs to comes next—building and supporting the public goods that make local and global progress possible.

We believe that innovations from the open source movement and privacy-preserving peer-to-peer computing can profoundly reshape the world. Our work is a bet on what we believe future cultural, organizational, and institutional forms will become: networks, governed by protocols.

APPLIED STUDIO

As we shift towards a world of protocols and networked ecosystems, alternative tools and approaches are needed. We focus on matching real world challenges to network-based solutions that have shown early practical advantages and reliability (and vice versa).

Applied Research: Clarify the best path forward for implementing a strategy, developing your technology or launching your program.

Narrative & Ethnography: Create clear, compelling narratives to translate your vision and work effectively to your stakeholders.

Go-To-Market/Ecosystem: Develop growth opportunities and connect you with the right partners and ecosystems.

Product & Development: Identify your core product features and needs, select the right technologies, and support their effective integration into your stacks.

Something new? Send us a message at hello@v6acolab.org

LABORATORY

Our end-game is to establish new institutional models, approaches and practical tools that live beyond us to increase individual and community agency. We operate at the local/city-scale to stress-test and expand protocol-based technologies and governance outside of their current incubation spaces.

PHASE 1 | EXPERIMENTATION LABORATORY [ACTIVE]

Test how decentralized and open-source solutions scale, capture insights on effectiveness, practical challenges, and adoption patterns.

PHASE 2 | SCALABLE PROTOTYPING

Develop software tools, governance frameworks, and collaborative models from Phase 1 insights, designed for adoption by cities, community networks, and institutional ecosystems.

PHASE 3 | NETWORKED INSTITUTIONS

Support the transition of cities and institutions into fully networked entities, integrating decentralized approaches into existing systems for broader adoption.

WORK

SELECT PROJECTS ⟶

OPEN AGTECH | 2024 - PRESENT
Open AgTech Community, 11th Hour Project, OpenTEAM
We’re working with a network of farmers and technologists rebuilding the agricultural technology stack fully open source and decentralized in its governance. Operating at the network and node level of their ecosystem, V6A is supporting the design and operations of aparticipatory funding mechanism for the network, clarifying and communicating the shape of their ecosystem and vision as in-house ethnographers, while also working with individual software projects in the ecosystem to connect them to appropriate decentralized technologies and go-to-community strategies for open source software.
[Ecosystem Development] [GTM] [Narrative] [Applied Research]

INTERNET MESH NETWORKS | 2023
221A, City of Vancouver
We supported the launch of East Vancouver’s first pilot public WiFi mesh network. The pilot aimed to test the feasibility of providing public internet access to the area and establishing precedent for disaster-resilient local communications. V6A spoke with mesh networks around the world to better understand challenges and best practices to inform our local strategy, and brought on new partners to speedrun technical implementation of the project. We saw the City of Vancouver vote to unanimously endorse e
xpanding free public WiFi in the Downtown Eastside and adjacent n
eighbourhoods soon after.
[Technical Partnerships & Development] [GTM] [Applied Research]

CAPITAL ALLOCATION MECHANISMS | 2023
New Constellations
The answer of how to allocate large amounts of capital effectively and fairly has yet be answered. We explored resource distribution models in naturally occuring decentralized systems, such as mycelial and neuronal networks, to better understand how their communication and resource distribution mechanisms could inform new designs for funding allocation. After speaking with experts and field researchers in various fields, we developed a set of design principles and applied them to a pilot participatory grant program for a local network of civic innovators in the UK. The design principles are currently being considered for integration in other foundation grant programs.
[Applied Research] [Design]

CLIENTS & SUPPORTERS

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CONTACT

hello@v6acolab.org

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V6A is the postal code from where these ideas first started taking shape. Our name is a reminder that effective systems evolve through practical adaptation to local constraints, values and realities.

V6A Labs